Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  So after mature deliberation Douglas came to the conclusion that as a man of honour he could hardly call at the Duke’s temporary home for the express purpose of trying to find a chance of a tête-à-tête with Linda. That he had a right to an explanation he didn’t for a moment doubt; but Onslow Gardens was hardly, he felt, the proper place in which to angle for it.

  He waited impatiently, therefore, turning over in his own mind the chances of meeting Linda in this house or that, till some weeks had elapsed since the Simpsons’ party and Basil Maclaine’s astounding discovery. But no chance came, and he held on, helplessly, lecturing to ladies, as was his wont, and correcting, as of yore, the proofs of the Boomerang.

  At last one morning Douglas was sitting disconsolate in the old chambers in Clandon Street, lazily glancing over the leader of the day, and wondering in his heart how long a time must elapse before he could see Linda. It was the day after Hubert’s interview with his future father-in-law on the question of settlements, and Hubert had come back all jubilant with the news of his approaching marriage, and of Old Affability’s unexpected compliance. The typical British Philistine, indeed, had belied all his fears and surpassed all his hopes: he had frankly assented to Sabine’s marriage, and had astonished and even somewhat dismayed Hubert by insisting upon making the new M.P. into a rich man offhand by his unbounded generosity. In all this Douglas saw a chance for himself. Old Affability, as European representative of the Amberley syndicate, would be sure to ask the Duke and Duchess to Sabine’s wedding, which was shortly to take place, under distinguished patronage, and there he would no doubt see Linda once more. Of course, such a meeting would be gall and bitterness to him; but it would at least enable him to arrange some other under more suitable circumstances in the near future.

  As he mused thus to himself, he heard a curious and unusual sound in the street below, as of a carriage drawing up short at the door of the lodging-house.

  Those who know Clandon Street intimately do not need to be reminded that that convenient thoroughfare is neither a very wide nor a very aristocratic one. Carriages seldom stopped at the doors round about on any errand whatsoever; and this particular specimen, as Douglas observed, casting his glance casually down, was a landau and pair of the most lordly description, with powdered footmen. The children ran out to the steps all round to feast their eyes on so much unwonted grandeur. Douglas smiled good-humouredly at their eager curiosity.

  Presently, to his still greater surprise, a footman rang the bell at that very door. The stipendiary answered it, for she was still on hand. Douglas wondered languidly what such doings could portend. Surely no one who drove in a carriage, manned with such gorgeous flunkeys as those, could desire to take lodgings from the eminently respectable Mr. Higgs and his wife, who had been cook in a gentleman’s family. Some mistake somewhere, he ventured to believe; unless, indeed, Basil Maclaine, in some unguarded moment, had given his card (with number and all) to some of his fine acquaintances, and was now receiving a morning call from the Very Best People.

  As he wondered, however, a familiar voice struck strangely on his ear — a voice he had heard a thousand times before in that very passage.

  ‘What, you here still!’ it exclaimed, with some quiet surprise. ‘Well, that’s an additional unexpected pleasure. So you’ve been stopping on all this time with Mrs. Higgs, have you! How’s your cough? I was afraid you’d find the work too hard. I hope the place suits you.’

  Douglas could almost depict the girl’s look of astonishment as she drew back, dumfoundered, and exclaimed in a tone of inexpressible awe:

  ‘Why, Lord have mercy upon us, if it isn’t Miss Figgins!’

  ‘Not Miss Figgins any longer,’ Linda corrected, laughing in her own old pleasant, good-humoured manner. ‘I’m the Duchess of Powysland now. Doesn’t it sound grand? That’s what they call me since I got married, Emma.’

  Douglas could hardly restrain himself from rushing to the top of the stairs and calling out ‘Linda, Linda!’ in the good old style at the top of his voice, but he managed to keep himself still with some difficulty. After all, she might perhaps not wish to see him. She might have come to inquire after Basil Maclaine, who had always, he reflected bitterly to himself, been a great deal more to her than ever he had been. So he held his breath to hear, and listened, with his very heart standing still with interest.

  ‘A Duchess!’ the stipendiary murmured slowly, in an awe-smitten voice. ‘And in a carriage like that! Oh my, how fine! Why, what do it mean, miss?’

  Linda laughed once more, with almost childish glee, at the amazement her altered fortunes inspired.

  ‘Well, it means I’ve married a Duke, Emma; that’s all,’ she said merrily. ‘And Mr. Cecil’s done very well, too, and made his fortune with his electrical machines in America. You remember the machines, don’t you? — the things you used to be so dreadfully afraid to touch, that gave you shocks when you dusted them, and stood up yonder by the book-case.’

  ‘Yes, I mind them well,’ the girl answered, in a dazed sort of way; ‘but, Lor’ bless your heart, miss! I never thought there was much good in ’em, anyhow.’

  ‘The place isn’t looking quite so neat as when I was here, Emma,’ the Duchess went on reproachfully, with the air of one who casts a glance around at small misdemeanours of her subordinates. ‘Those panes in the fanlight, for example — they haven’t been cleaned at all, as they ought; and, oh dear, how dreadfully dull and dirty the stair-rods have got, my child! I’m afraid you’ve never used Jones’s soap to them.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mrs. Higgs, she ain’t so young nor so active as you were, miss — that is to say, my lady,’ Emma responded apologetically (her views as to the proper mode of address to be employed towards Duchesses being vague in the extreme, and open to correction from Basil Maclaine); ‘and it all falls upon me like, the housework and everything, and I can’t keep things quite as nice, with the cooking an’ that, as we’d used to keep ’em in your time, somehow. But, Lord bless your ‘eart! the gentlemen don’t seem to notice the difference, any way. They’re both of ’em living ’ere still. Did your ladyship ‘appen to want to see ’em?’

  Douglas’s heart gave a distinct pause as he waited for the reply. Then it thumped aloud as Linda answered clearly:

  ‘Not Mr. Maclaine, please, Emma; I won’t go up if he’s in the house. But if Mr. Harrison’s here, alone, I should like to see him.’

  What happened exactly after that Douglas never knew. He was only aware in a very dim way of feet on the stairs — patter, patter, patter. Then the rustle of a dress, an open door, a moment’s pause, a divine presence. Something thrilled through him down to the very finger-tips. Next instant he was standing with a pair of small gloved hands each held in his own, outstretched to take them, and was murmuring in a very low voice, almost under his breath:

  ‘Why, Linda, Linda!’

  For, do what he could, he couldn’t find it in his heart to speak to his recovered love as ‘Duchess.’

  What kindness! What condescension! Of her own accord, then, she had come after all to see him!

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.

  For a minute or two neither spoke any further. Linda stood with both her hands laid lightly in Douglas’s, gazing straight into his face, her eyes fixed on his, but saying nothing. He was a very dear friend, and in her frank, calm way she was glad indeed to see him again. As for Douglas, his heart was too full for words. Linda’s condescension in coming to visit him of her own accord struck him dumb with gratitude. He could only hold those two dear hands clasped hard in his, and feel his heart beat, and gaze at her mutely.

  At last Linda dropped his hands with a sudden movement, and broke the eloquent silence.

  ‘And you never came to call upon me, Mr. Harrison,’ she exclaimed reproachfully.

  In a moment a new difficulty stared Douglas in the face. Here was indeed a dilemma. How could he defend himself against this obvious attack without saying more than in ho
nour he ought to say to Linda? How repel the charge of neglect without more open expression of his inmost thoughts than was meet or just in talking to one who was now another man’s wife? Douglas was a man of honour, and it was hard indeed for him to shape his course aright without seeming either too cold on the one hand or too warm on the other — to conceal his love, and yet give sufficient expression to his heartfelt friendship. He stammered out an answer as best he might.

  ‘Why, you see, Linda — I mean — well, now, tell me, what am I to call you?’

  Linda sank down with an air of much content in the familiar old armchair, still covered with the tulip-pattern cretonne sewn on by her own deft fingers, and answered, laughing:

  ‘Why, Linda, of course, Mr. Harrison. What else should it be? — just the same as ever. You don’t suppose because I’ve married a Duke it need make any difference between old friends like you and me, do you?’

  Her answer, kind as it was, and meant to reassure him, went like a knife to Douglas’s heart. Ah, no, it made no difference to her, of course, for it had only been as a friend she had ever liked him; but to him! why the difference was something too deep to realize; it cut at the very roots of all his hopes and all his thoughts and day-dreams for the future. Linda for him — though Linda still — was now, in one crushing, overwhelming sense, the Duchess of Powysland.

  ‘You’re very good, Linda,’ he answered, his voice all trembling. ‘How kind of you to remember old friends so heartily! But you were always kindness itself to me. Well, the truth is, I didn’t come to call — partly because I didn’t feel quite sure in my own mind whether or not you wanted to see me.’

  ‘Mr. Harrison!’

  She said it in the tone of one who is genuinely hurt and surprised at a base insinuation. Douglas regretted at once he had let the words slip as he did.

  ‘At any rate,’ he added hastily, correcting himself as fast as he could, ‘I didn’t exactly know what footing we stood upon, and what attitude I ought to assume towards your husband, if — well ... if you can understand my difficulty.’

  ‘No, I don’t understand it,’ Linda answered, rising, and drawing her pocket-handkerchief from her pocket with a familiar gesture. Douglas knew what it meant; he remembered the action so well from the dear old days. A speck of dust on a vase upon the mantelpiece had arrested her attention, and pure force of habit made that born housewife wipe it off at once with the only duster then and there available.

  ‘Emma doesn’t keep the room quite so nicely as she used to do,’ her grace went on slowly, regarding the smear on the handkerchief with considerable discomfiture. ‘Just look at this smudge now. Unpardonable, isn’t it? Luckily, I’ve got another one in my muff, or I don’t know what on earth I’d do with this.... Well, no, Mr. Harrison; I don’t understand your difficulty at all. Why didn’t you come and call? I’ve been so surprised at it — and even hurt, for ever since that evening I met — Mr. Maclaine — at the Simpsons’ at home, I’ve been expecting daily to see you drop in upon us.’

  ‘No, you don’t mean that!’ Douglas cried, delighted, yet rather taken aback by Linda’s vigorous way of carrying the war into Africa. ‘How very good of you! But I didn’t call for various reasons. In the first place, I’m not accustomed to dropping in upon Dukes; and, in the second place, I thought, if you really wanted to see me, you’d drop in yourself to look me up, don’t you know, Linda.’

  Linda’s face grew grave.

  ‘It isn’t usual for women to take the initiative in that way,’ she answered more seriously. ‘And besides, how could you possibly expect me to come ... where Mr. Maclaine was living? That wasn’t like you!’

  ‘Of course not! How stupid of me!’ Douglas replied with sudden conviction. ‘I never thought of that. But then, I really didn’t know whether you wanted to see me or not; for, remember, you haven’t written a line to me all this long time; and you didn’t even tell me of all your good fortune. Till I heard of it from him, I knew nothing about it.’

  Linda looked grave once more. Looking grave became that dignified face of hers, dignified now more than ever in its appropriate surroundings of fur cloak and bonnet.

  ‘But there was a good reason, then,’ she answered. ‘Of course you can guess it. That reason disappeared when I married Bertie. I sent you a message by Mr. Maclaine which I thought you would understand. Surely you must have known and felt how much I wished to see you, and what a sacrifice it was to me never during all that long time to write to you. For you can’t help recognising, I’m sure, Mr. Harrison, how deeply I’ve always valued and cherished your friendship.’

  Douglas’s heart gave a little jump of delight. Pure and unalloyed as was his affection for Linda, how could he avoid a burst of gratification at that kindly avowal?

  ‘Well, the real reason I didn’t call,’ he said candidly, at last, thus driven into a corner, ‘that is to say, the most real reason of all, the true truth, as Hubert would call it, was because I wasn’t quite sure in what relations you stood with the Duke; how far it would be agreeable to you, for example, that he should learn the facts about ... about your previous life over here in England. He married you, I suppose, as the rich, unattached New York heiress; I didn’t feel certain, you see, to what extent you had spoken to him of the days when — eh — when you were not yet a queen in society.’

  For a second Linda looked at him with a curiously inquiring look. Then she burst into a sudden peal of merry laughter.

  ‘Why, Mr. Harrison,’ she cried, much amused, ‘I’m really half angry with you. I couldn’t have believed it of you, of all men. Did you actually think that of me? Well, now, I should have thought that you at least knew me a great deal better. I should have thought you’d have known I would never want to conceal anything of any sort from anybody — far less from my husband. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, and I’m ashamed of nothing. When I met Bertie first in New York, and saw he was paying me marked attentions, I told him plainly I was English born, and of no particular antecedents. I told him I’d lived more than half my life in London. I told him how Cecil had worked his way up, and how I’d made money by helping Cecil. I’m proud of Cecil’s achievements, and I’m proud, too, of my own belief from the first in Cecil. (Mrs. Higgs ought really to have Aspinalled that bookcase long ago! It’s fearfully shabby!) I feel that without my aid and encouragement during his struggling days, great mechanical genius as he is, he’d never have brought his grand inventions to a satisfactory conclusion; and that without the money I’d saved in the house, he’d never have been able to go to America or to float them financially to such splendid advantage. I have a part in his success, and I pride myself upon it. Instead of being ashamed of our self-made rise, I openly glory in it.’

  Douglas Harrison looked at her with honest admiration. To be sure, it was just what he might have expected from her. There spoke the Linda he had always known and loved. How on earth could he ever for one moment have doubted her? He was ashamed of himself now for even supposing such a base thought possible to Linda. If she had married a Duke, she had married him at least without one thought of concealing or of suppressing anything. She was Adalbert Montgomery’s natural superior, and she never pretended to ignore the fact. But how, then, did she come to marry him at all? That was still the mystery that puzzled and baffled Douglas.

  So they fell soon into talk of Cecil’s success, and of the good old times, and of his plans and his models, and how hard he had worked at them in the parlours at Clandon Street — talk which the new-made Duchess varied from time to time by quite naturally gliding across to pull the curtains straight at the window, or rearrange the vases on the painted deal overmantel, or sweep up the cinders from the fender with the groggy little hearthbrush, as if she had only just come back to town after a week’s absence from her accustomed avocations. She told him how Cecil had worked and worked at the models in England till he had got them quite perfect; how he had despaired, after much inquiry, of ever floating his schemes on the London market, except by ma
king them over on ruinous terms to a syndicate of capitalists; how he had found that, in order adequately to protect his own interests as inventor, he must go to America, ever more receptive of new ideas and discoveries than our conservative Britain; how he had secured a good post with the New York firm, and immediately on his arrival had got them to take up his valuable patents; how from the very first moment success had been assured, local rights had been bought up, new uses had been developed; and how they found themselves millionaires in the end, with true American rapidity, almost before they knew it.

  ‘It rained stocks and shares,’ Linda said. ‘Cattle kings and big bonanzas were really nothing to it.’

  To all which financial detail Douglas Harrison listened with interest indeed, but none the less with some little impatience, so anxious was he to come to the central core and heart of the mystery — why had Linda, his peerless, fearless Linda, ever consented to marry the Duke of Powysland?

  When at length he did arrive at it, by dexterous side-issues, he was positively ashamed of himself once more for the ease and simplicity with which Linda solved that seemingly insoluble problem. The world, that to the rest of us is so full of twists and turns, seemed always to her mind so astonishingly straightforward.

  ‘And you met him first in New York then?’ Douglas suggested tentatively, when Linda again brought up her husband’s name, anxious, if possible, to turn the conversation into that more congenial channel.

  ‘Yes, I met him in New York,’ Linda answered, ‘at a big dance up town at the Vanderbilts’. Everybody was there, and he was the guest of the evening. He waltzed with me three or four times the very first night. He was very much taken with me, I suppose, for he talked to me incessantly. And a few weeks later, after meeting me once or twice more, he suddenly proposed to me — and I accepted him.’